Page 19 of Cruel Dominion

“Oh.” I looked down into my plate of food again. The fries were cold now and instead of looking inviting, they looked shriveled and flat. “Right. That.”

“You still take pictures, right?”

I shifted in my seat. Yeah, I’d taken plenty of pictures, but they weren’t the kind of photos I could just show off.

Photography had always been a way for me to deal with the world around me. Back in high school, I used it to keep my life at a distance, safe inside a frame. I spent years feeling like I was failing to fit into my father’s mold, like I could never be the person I was supposed to be. Photographing the cotillions, the expensive schools, and the trips to the beauty salon made me feel like an anthropologist, capturing the weird world I’d been thrust into.

Then there were the photos I took on the midnight beach with Carter’s arms around my waist from behind, his scent in my nose and his lips whispering against the nape of my neck.

Some of my best work.

After everything happened and I left home, I started working at the Butterfly Room in St. Louis and took pictures of that. The women I worked with were funny, brash, and sassy. I loved taking photos in the break room, capturing them pushing up their boobs, putting on their make-up, and trying on each other’s teeny-tiny dresses. They sang along to shitty pop songs, painted each other’s nails, and made goofy faces when they caught me pointing the camera at them.

Then there were the harder shots. The ones I took after a girl had three too many men touch her that night and needed to vent her frustration to the others. The ones where the others would huddle around her, making her feel safe and loved and protected.

The vengeful looks in their eyes when they went back out onto the floor, ready for revenge in whatever form the girls deemed fit for the crime.

When we were out working, all anyone saw was our bodies. We were commodities, existing only to serve the patrons who paid enough to cover cocktails at the glorified titty bar. In my photos, we were people, with humor, intelligence, and dignity.

Most importantly, I photographed what Josh did to me. Every time he struck me, every time he left a mark, I’d take a picture. Taking self portraits of the abuse he inflicted on me was the only thing that made me feel like my body belonged to me again. If I could photograph it, then I didn’t have to shove it in the back of my mind and pretend it never happened. I had the proof, and that made me feel strong.

Of course, I could never show anyone those pictures. There would be way too much to explain.

Instead, I just shrugged. “Sure, I take photos. But it’s more of a hobby than anything else.”

Summer cocked her head. “Don’t downplay it. Photography is a real skill. I know girls who pay thousands of dollars to get people to do their Instagram posts.”

“I’m just…not interested,” I said. Talking about photography with her was just…too real, somehow. It hurt.

“What about guys?” she asked, thankfully changing the subject.

“Hm?”

“Men. Are you seeing someone right now maybe?”

My lip curled back and I shook my head briskly. “Oh no. Single and staying that way.”

Summer laughed.

“Wow, that bad?”

No, worse. I deleted another string of threatening text messages from Josh just this morning. He wasn’t even doing it for a response. Anything he could do to distract, inconvenience and harass me was a win for him. He was a mean, petty man, both drunk and while sober.

I couldn’t wait until my new phone to be delivered to the house. The stupid thing should have arrived already.

“Let’s just say I’m not looking.”

Unbidden, a memory of Josh punching me in the stomach after I came home late after closing the lounge swam to the top of my mind. My jaw clenched. Ugly thoughts broke through. Heat burned in my stomach and fizzled through my limbs. I clenched my fist around the sweating glass of my drink. I was never strong enough to fight back, but he made me wish I was, just so I could hurt him the same ways he hurt me.

I hated that he made me think things like that. I was never violent. I was never disillusioned and cold, but it was amazing what the wrong man at the wrong time was capable of doing to you. I vividly dreamt of smothering him with a pillow or slipping a knife into his carotid when he passed out drunk more often than I cared to admit—and always awoke with the taste of bitter guilt on my tongue.

“We all have those guys we regret,” Summer said.

Regret was an understatement. I asked her whether she had had better luck. Her boyfriend, James, was in his last year of med school. He was an upstanding member of society who treated her like a princess, doting on her every chance he got while supporting her aspirations until they were ready to have kids, and filling her bank account with more money than she could ever spend.

What was that like?

And why didn’t it appeal to me?

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